Evening At Adler

Mac Developers Unite

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Justin Williams gives a summary of the the Evening At Adler put on by DrunkenBatman at Chicago's Adler Planetarium in October of 2005

Conferences are nothing new to the Mac and technology community. Speaking solely from the Mac perspective, we gather yearly for Macworld San Francisco, Apple’s Worldwide Developer’s Conference and, up until recently, ADHOC.

At Macworld, consumers gather to discuss using the Macintosh in our everyday lives and to see the latest innovations from Apple and other Macintosh companies. Special interest groups are segregated by users, information technology workers and power users.

With the Worldwide Developers Conference, developers of all types gather to discuss the creation of the software that is on display at Macworld. WWDC lets developers focus on application technologies, enterprise applications and application development.

At ADHOC, geeks of all natures flocked to Michigan to write code, mod machines and perform any type of hack that can gain them notoriety with the other attendees.

One of the newest trends in technology conferences is thinking small and narrowing the focus. In recent years events like Foo Camp, BarCamp and Tag Camp. These un-conferences don’t have set speaker schedules, allow anyone and encourage everyone to participate in dictating the direction of the discussion.

The latest trend of un-conference gatherings is DrunkCamp (as dubbed by Jonathon “Wolf” Rentzsch): a group of independent Mac developers gathering for a free-form discussion of their business and their beliefs.

The Drunken Batman

The Cow

While he refers to himself as a guy with a Web site many have bantered about who exactly the DrunkenBatman is and what his credentials are. Many know him for his exposure of Maui X-Stream and their Cherry OS product.

His site, DrunkenBlog, has gained notoriety beyond Cherry OS with in-depth interviews with Mac celebrities such as Brent Simmons of NewsGator and Wil Shipley of Delicious Monster.

If ever there was a testament to the credentials and credibility of the DB it would be his ability to gather some of the biggest names in Mac software to let loose their thoughts and ideas on a bevy of topics.

Blame Apple

This talk should have never happened. It’s all Apple’s fault. They had invited DB to give a speech at their Michigan Avenue retail store on the 19th of October, but backed out for uncertain or undisclosed reasons. It has been speculated that the topic of digital rights management (DRM) was not something Apple wanted to have in their stores due to the fact that they embed said technology in every song sold on the iTunes Music Store.

When Apple cancelled, the search for a new venue began and was finally settled when the Adler Planetarium offered their Universe Theater for the discussion. Along with the new venue, a laundry list of developers signed up to come to the event and sit on a panel to discuss the Mac platform, development, DRM and other topics in a freeform, unmoderated discussion.

Thus was born the Evening At Adler: DrunkCamp.

Sitting on the panel were the developers of many of most popular Mac applications today. The following were in attendance:

The Play-By-Play

The discussion at Evening At Adler was just as described: freeform and unmoderated. Topics covered included a live discussion of Wil Shipley’s thoughts on Unit Testing as opposed to the rest of the panels, whether following Apple’s Human Interface Guidelines was necessary 100% of the time, Apple’s Font Panel and the benefits and pitfalls of using frameworks in your application.

Of course one of the biggest topics of the night was the discussion of Digital Rights Management and the iTunes Music Store. The opinions on the topic varied from some being staunchly opposed to it in any form to others finding it acceptable in small doses such as iTunes. This is an important topic for everyone including non-developers because it could shape the way we can (and can’t) use our computers over the next ten years.

All of the panelists were against product activation as a method of DRM because it inconveniences the legitimate users much more than the software pirates who will just find a way to thwart the activation scheme.

Panelists also took questions from members of the audience. MacZealots’ own Ryan J. Bonnell asked the panelists whether they were worried about Apple stepping on their market in a similar way that Dashboard did for Konfabulator. While some were worried about the intrusion into their market, they also suggested that developers try and vary their products’ target markets as much as possible so that you aren’t left with nothing to fall back on.

At the end of the event, the panelists and attendees migrated to Jak’s Tap for food, drinks and more conversation.

At The Bottom Of The White Russian

By everyone’s account the Evening At Adler was a great success. Both the panelists and the attendees had an great time and learned from each other.

Whether or not the trend of smaller DrunkCamp-like conferences will continue remains to be seen, but this latest fad is certainly bringing about discussion of ideas more than any event in quite a long time.

The Evening At Adler Podcast

Listen To Our Podcast
While at the Evening At Adler, we took the time to interview several of the panelists and the attendees at the after party. You will hear from the likes of Brent Simmons, Wil Shipley, Gus Mueller, and many others.
Listen Now

Photos From the Event

More fabulous photos of the evening are available on our Flickr account, including the ability to add your own comments and notes to the pictures. If you like what you hear, see or read, we encourage you to send us your feedback.

Justin WilliamsJustin Williams is founder and chief author for MacZealots. He switched to the Mac almost five years ago hasn't looked back since. When not blogging or coding, you can find him watching copious amounts of TV. Justin can be reached at

Reader Comments (1)

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1 Jenna Walker remarks:
#1) On October 25, 2005 10:59 PM

Justin, such a good article! Well written, very articulate, impressive. I listened to your podcast earlier, before you put it up live, and its great. I definitely think you should keep them up, Justin. You did really well, good interviews, wonderful articulation. It sounds like this was a great event for you and that you had a great time. Busy busy but a great time. You do all this good work, keep it up for Zealots!